Pepper

Denial is more than just a river in Egypt

Here is a news item from last week;

Fight over headphones delays flight

MONTREAL -- Two pilots on an Air Canada Jazz flight were forced to break up a fight between two passengers who were brawling over a pair of headphones, police say.

One of the men was kicked off the flight at Trudeau Airport and has been arraigned on several charges.

The altercation delayed the flight to Winnipeg on Tuesday afternoon.

Montreal police spokesman Dany Richer said officers were called to the plane, which was still at the gate.

"The conflict began when one of the two men sat on the armrest of a seat and broke his neighbour's headphones," said Richer.

A fight broke out and a flight attendant was unable to separate the men.

"Her arm was hurt during the altercation," said Richer.

The pilots were finally able to separate the two passengers.

Jamie Lee Prefontaine, 26, of Winnipeg, was taken into custody and charged after police say he resisted arrest and tried to damage a police cruiser.

Prefontaine was arraigned at the Montreal courthouse Thursday on charges of assault with a weapon, uttering threats and mischief.

Air Canada Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said the flight was delayed two hours.

If you search this article it will show up dozens of times, exactly the same. But I had a relative on that flight and a different story emerges.

Specifically, there were four natives who boarded in Montreal, all drunk. The one that was taken away by the police and subsequently charged was covered in gang tattoos and had been asleep in his seat and not responsive to the attendant who was trying to wake him. At some point the man awoke and using a chain from around his neck attacked the attendant bruising her arm resulting in his being removed from the plane by the police.

Which version is correct and why am I bringing this up?

It has to do with another story from last week concerning Air Canada's decision to put up their flight crews during layovers at the Sandman away from their old haunts at the Radisson in the city centre citing concerns over an increase in local crime which they felt was brought on by an influx of "rural" Mantitobans driven from their homes by flooding.

In this case there were several more articles from different sources each adding to the story. So much information that native Chiefs started calling for a boycott against AC and legal action against anyone and everyone, a predictable response that we won't address here. What was interesting was the way the Mayor and other provincial politicians and downtown business leaders combined forces to lash out at AC's very reasonable response to the situation in the downtown. They did not use facts like those that could very easily be found on CromeStat as was very nicely done by Menno Zacharias.


Instead he Mayors response was to find one or two people to claim, as a matter of opinion and without addressing any facts, that the Winnipeg downtown is super fine and just needs the benefit of the doubt. I kid you not.

Kevin O'Leary, Tone Deaf?

Or just in character.

Witness this example of his tired shtick getting the slap down by Pulitzer prize winning US journo Chris Hedges.

And now compare that embarrassment with an interview by RT. Yes, RT. CBC should hang their heads.

How To Peel A Head Of Garlic

My wife and I use a lot of garlic, so this is very, very useful!

I have been living in a desert.

Rachel Platten – 1,000 Ships

This has been running around in my brain for a while now. 

And The Last Day Of Summer Is Upon MeYouUs

Hmmm, almost time to put (throw) the sandals away and start wearing socks, if I can ever get the soles of my feet clean again. Going to have to be mismatched darkish socks from the church bin most likely. For a while, till the grey scales and carbuncles wear off.


September equinox or Autumnal Equinox will be tomorrow I figure. Marking the end of summer, and what a great summer it was, no bugs! Heh. Mostly no employment either but one should not complain about what everyone else thinks is likely to be a great deal during the summer time. Being un(self)employed. I'll clue y'all into the reality of that little grade school fallacy some other time, but here's a hint. Being unemployed on a beach in Ischia is a whole lot different than being unemployed in Winnipeg. Just so you know. 

But of course this means I'll be blogging again and so sorry about that my fellow droogs. I mean, you knew it was likely to happen right? As long as I didn't OD or get hit by an ice cream truck stumbling off the curb whilst sssquinting into the way harsh early morning light.

Weeeell, looking around I see that the Blogger™ interface has been updated! Guess I shouldn't be surprised. My FB is a mess. Full of "improvements." And something called Google + which I already have set up and linked to my Twitter/Linkedin/FB/Flickr yadayada. Did it on my iPhone4 while taking a crap and waiting for the 5 to appear and give me a hand job.

Meh. I really need to get something different happening. Isn't it time for nuclear war or something. The 2nd coming?

But I've said too much already. First things first, a little housekeeping is in order. I need to clean out those blog links, reset the wallpaper and get a new battery for the MacBook. I'm partitioned and running Win 7 but 8 is coming out already? How the fuck am I supposed to keep up with this shit, I just upgraded the other partition to Lion! 

Sigh. It's going to be a long winter.

Lazy Daze of Summer

I'm still around. Not very productive though, many incomplete posts in Drafts. Marvelling at the Murdoch Meltdown and the American Debt Debacle but generally calm and peaceful which is not a condition that nurtures strong opinion. Behold...

...nevermind the storm activity, it's a false flag. Nothing to see here. So back outside to fire up the BBQ. If I was with my wife right now we would both be suffering through the smoggy humid hell that is Moscow at this time of year and dreaming of southern Italy and The Med. But the Great Magnet is being cruel to us and we are only left with our dreams. Soon that will change.

Now you must excuse me, summer does not last very long around here.

Things That I have Learned On My Trip To Port Alberni!

1) Vancouver island is "The Land That Time Forgot!"™ Old hippies with equally old dogs mingling with a highly mobile yet laid back younger crowd. Many, many people who commute to the oilsands at Fort McMurray or Calgary AB for work and still live here in the area, like a big suburb with low wattage lighting. Low population density, some interesting folks to be sure. Great lifestyle. Never a dumb conversation (baked guy in the bar admits to holidaying in Torsten, Honduras when the winter clouds get him down, he's like 60ish). A climate which rarely exceeds +6℃/+23℃ through the year, low level cop presence. Not everyone has a smart phone. Fun fact.

2) No straight lines by road. Internet sez 50 km as the crow flies being the distance between the YQQ airport at Comox and Port Alberni for example, in reality the drive takes 1.25hrs through some drop dead gorgeous country (see pics). Cheapest rental car is $50/day while Ambassador Shuttle Service is $125 one way. By way of comparison my man Bob with United Taxi here in Port Alberni sez his rate one way is $216! I'm still searching for a better deal but my hopes aren't high. Still have to check out Island Chauffeur.

3) Air travel is something you have to figure out if you want to survive. CMA (Central Mountain Air) is a well connected service with Comox being the hub for flights inland and Vancouver (which is why the Comox/Cambell River/Port Alberni and valley is so popular, plus real estate is well below the 1.3 million starter home in Vancouver) but there are smaller carriers for hopping around the island like KD Air or any number of terrifying float planes. It cost me $409 to fly in from Winnipeg on a Tuesday and it looks like it will be $625 to fly out of Comox on a Tuesday. If I had known more about the job I would have booked round trip airfare, but it's not a perfect world. Flying out on a Sunday would be $1,200. Complete craziness. Better to stay an extra day or two and try to argue the invoice.

4) A 750ml bottle of JD's is $30. My man Steve at the cold beer and liquor store is originally from Montreal. I didn't recognize a single bottle of wine in his shop. Not one.

5) Everyone seems to be from somewhere else.

6) It's so civil here I can barely stand it. Even the drunks/addicts are well behaved as they try to scam your taxi driver into fronting them a lift to be paid for tomorrow like Wimpy feeding his burger Jones. Most of you are probably too young to catch that.

7) Tonight there is a wedding and most of the peeps are staying here in my hotel on my floor. Not a noise. Completely quite. And they aren't all olds! Some of the guests arrived on bicycles and left them in the lobby.

8) Almost everyone over a certain age is a laid off worker from Catalyst, the local Paper mill which is right here in town a 5 minute walk from my hotel. There are sea lions in the river right outside the mill, bears when the water level drops later in the fall. As a matter of fact the bears have been known to congregate around the front lobby of the hotel (Best Western Barclay). This is from Bob the taxi dude, I think he's jerk'n my chain. Still, when I was working the LNG on Sakhalin island in the Russian Far East there were whales in Aniva Bay and the project hired bear hunters to keep the critters out of camp. Fortunately nothing was killed while I was there. Except for a poor half tame camp fox that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ran across a drunk Russian who promptly skinned him and left the carcass on the steps to his shack. I don't make this up folks. Ask Colin with Kentech.

Bad pics, I can't get anything worthwhile out of my freaking phone. Old growth forest. Deep emerald green that reminded one of fairy's, leprechauns and provoked a desire to doff ones clothes and masturbate wildly. Or maybe that was just me.

And I must admit as I suck out of the bottle of 2009 Chase Warren Merlot, the grapes are just fine, very, very, fine.

Being An Empire Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry!

It isn't a new concept, making the loser pay the bills, ask the Romans. Rumsfeld apparently being a student of history or just completely corrupt knows this in his cells and pretty much sold the Iraq war to the American public through 43 on the premise that the Iraqi people would be so thankful to be released from Saddam's oppressive yoke that they would repay the "American" invasion without question which is just a neato way of saying the same thing, not that he really cared what anyone thought as the fix was in already. Just how such things are tabulated in public hasn't been explained which isn't a big deal when you have a country by the short hairs after all. The missing 6.6 billion in cash as an example would presumably be included but how to compensate the coalition of the willing, maybe ask Rep. Dana Rohrabacher? Never mind, they (the coalition) got theirs on the front end presumably.

Lets just bypass Afghanistan as I don't think anyone knows what to do with that stinker unless one were to, oh, get into dealing huge amounts of heroin. For instance.

But now we are witnessing the Americans dragging Libya into the same equation, at least according to Sen. Mitch McConnell on CNN's John King USA this evening. Libya must pay, sez he, but America first of course! I would presume France would have a few unkind words for Senator McConnell but who cares what the Frenchies think.

This is of course just a fast track to plundering a country for it's gold, America being so far in debt and so morally unhinged it is now acceptable to simply invade a country for no reason at all and then bill them for it. A very long and impossible to read bill of course, one that could never be fully repaid. Ever.

The future in one big fucking rainbow.

James Carville Isn't On Twitter!

Don't Trust Social Media! Or anything/anyone else for that matter. Why? Well, as regards social media there are several reasons as it turns out but being fed and then possibly acting upon false information is the point behind this post. Maybe even a little identity theft as well if you want to look at it that way.


Example? I like James Carville's opinions but I haven't been over exposed to him, I don't fixate on any so called pundits in particular and prefer to keep an open mind by playing the field as I don't consider myself to be "right" or "left" on the political spectrum. I've watched Mr. Carville a little with Eliot Spitzer on CNN and sometimes I catch him on a Sunday morning doing one of the political talk shows. Always entertaining but I don't know the mans opinions well enough to pick him out of a crowd, unless he's being witheringly sarcastic ("am I a potted plant here?"). 


I have visited his official website a couple of times and just today spurred by the Anthony Weiner debacle I decided to find Mr. Carville on Twitter and maybe get a chuckle. I didn't put too much effort into it, just a Twitter search from my account which came up with one feed that simply listed the names of American servicemen that had been sent in by family and loved ones. One twat after another of names but it did link back to the official website which I was familiar with. This didn't sit well with what I thought I knew about the man but I had other things to do so with a disappointed shrug I moved on.


Then I was fortunate enough to catch Mr. Carville on CNN just hours ago, again with Eliot Spitzer in the Arena discussing the Weiner thing and he (Carville) made the comment that he did. not. use. Twitter and didn't really know or care what it was!


?


So I Googled "James Carville on Twitter" and came up with two more Twitter accounts purporting to be Mr. Carville. I suppose there are more but this is enough for me to make my point.


http://twitter.com/#!/jamescarville  2576 followers
http://twitter.com/#!/James_Carville  298 followers

http://twitter.com/#!/ragincarville  1116 followers

So, there are at least 3990 people who think they are following James Carville, 298 of them who were apparently duped into sending him the names of servicemen and women to be listed on his Twitter feed. I would go out on a limb and suggest that none of these feeds belong to the real James Carville.

Now this shouldn't surprise anyone with even a smattering of knowledge as to how the Internet works as in the back of our minds we are all aware of how easy it is to set up a Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc account in someone else's name let alone actually gain access to an existing account simply by using the reset password option, no hacking required! It's one of the reasons I deleted my Facebook account. That and my total lack of friends.

So I wonder what kind of opinions and thoughts have been expressed on these feeds and whether they bear any resemblance to what the real James Carville would opine, and should I let him know? It's really none of my business as I'm sure he has people who should be looking out for that sort of thing so I'll just let it slide. And there's a reason for that.

I actually believed that Anthony Weiner had been set up by that shit Andrew Breitbart and that Weiner would eventually be vindicated. After all many well respected websites who know much more than I as to how things work on the intertubes had performed a forensic search of the data available and the consensus was that it was a set up.

Imagine our embarrassment. Sometimes I hate the Internet. ;)

POTUS Bows To Racists!

The thing is that's exactly what has just happened with President Obamas release of his long form birth certificate.  By addressing this fabricated issue he played right into the hands of those racist Americans who can't deal with the fact that the fairly elected President of The United States Of America is black.

Hilarious huh? Roughly half of Republicans hate Obama not so much because he is a Democrat but because of his skin colour so no one with a functioning brain was at all surprised when the GOP started puking up bat shit crazy political opportunists too numerous to list here. But what is really hair raising is that only 38% of Americans polled by USA Today believed that Obama was definitely born in the country! 

It won't stop here of course. The carnival barkers are already promoting the next conspiracy theory regarding the presidents academic chops. It's going to be an ugly race in 2012.

The Flip Camcorder Is Dead!

Yup. Dead. As in not going to be made anymore. Won't be any new models. No development. Dirt nap.

Of course this comes just six months after I purchased my Ultra and started really having some fun with it as mentioned at the end of the previous post. And it will continue to be fun until it breaks or gets stolen as I refuse to be a slave to technology by freaking out and replacing it, I mean when other drivers see that thing mounted to my windshield out of confusion and self preservation they assume it is some sort of law enforcement device and immediately start behaving in a civilized fashion and if you read the previous post then you know where I am coming from with this! I wouldn't give that feeling up for anything! Mind you in the olden days we simply put a boot on the vehicles dash but that was when vinyl records were pre-retro.

It's all the fault of those smart phones apparently. On account of all the wonderful things that they do we are seeing the extinction of everything from alarm clocks, watches, MP3 players and our beloved stand alone camcorders. But I don't buy into that view because I'm old enough to know better. Don't believe me? Remember when "they" were marketing a TV set with the VCR built into the same cabinet? When your VCR went tits up and had to be serviced you lost the teevee as well proving the old adage "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!" And I have I think five or six old cell phones kicking around on two continents so I've been a rube long enough! Plus I've already done the lens hack on my Flip which is not possible with a cell phone, smart or otherwise.



And who really wants to risk their expensive smart phone taking risky videos that may see your camcorder damaged/destroyed by drunk celebrities or confiscated by face control or law enforcement in general. Do you know how much personal information is on that phone? Do you really want some chimp taking it away from you and downloading all that? I thought not.

Chasing technology has become a common exercise, a shared experience, but it's a mirage. Leaving the hospital some time ago a fellow elevator traveller felt compelled to ask my opinion on damage done to his furniture by the exterminator (bed bugs, you hate them right?) which necessitated his showing me photos on his popular top end smart phone. The furniture was particle board stuff you wouldn't even find at Ikea but his gap toothed grin was all about the phone in his hand. Why the hell else would you accost a total stranger, admit to having a crib full of bad furniture and insects except to show off your smart phone which no doubt locks you into a three year unbreakable contract which will outlive that fragile piece of technology in your hand and bring nothing but tears the first time you drop it.

Nope. I'm glad I have my Flip Ultra and may even keep my eyes peeled for a fire sale in order to pick up a second one. I'll put that puppy in the vehicles rear window just above my Elect Cthulhu bumper sticker. 

Winnipeg, Worst Drivers in Canada?

Yes, I mean you Winnipeg! I felt safer driving around Rome, or Moscow. They may have a, shall we say, festive attitude towards driving but it's not the naked aggression displayed by the fine citizens of this city. Witness the wreck I drove past heading east on Portage at the intersection of Cavalier at 9:50 this am. The driver "attacked the concrete divider!" knocking down several posts in order to do so and look how far up the meridian he is!

Check out that light beam from the heavens, doesn't bode well for the motor vehicle operator methinks. It could be argued that it's just the reflection on my drivers side window but I know a supernatural event when I see one on account of that there tee-vee show on the tee-vee, that I sometimes watch, at night. And the golden arch is kind of a give away on some level.

That's a busy intersection but quite normal in it's configuration, not like that nasty cluster fuck at the Super Store just down the road. Generally speaking I go on hyper alert when ever I have to navigate a parking lot in this city. The intended traffic pattern as indicated by all those yellow lines on the pavement seems to be interpreted differently by everyone from teenagers stress testing their learners permit to little old ladies, everyone just burning around the lot in random patterns which means there is no warning before you are in a fender bender. BOOM!! Lets not get into 4-way stop signs. They are after all merely a suggestion and right of way is determined solely by vehicle size.

I probably shouldn't be making light of this particular situation because not much had changed when I drove by heading west 25 minutes later. But radio didn't mention any casualties and the channel 2 evening news didn't mention it at all as we're not even considered part of the city way out here in the west end. But I digress.

There isn't a moment where I am not reminded how really shitty and insane Winnipeg drivers are. From the well dressed gentleman in the silver Ford Escape who was reading the sun paper while driving as the firefighter waved us through this intersection,  to all those aggressive lane changers zig zagging all over the place, the knuckle draggers in their huge 4X4's crowding my back bumper and the really really dense bastards pulling U-turns and clogging the left lane for ridiculously long periods of time. Close cousins to the mouth breathers who enter Portage from a side street and calmly sit astride two lanes while they wait for an opening in traffic going the other way. This is a special kind of idiot. Three lanes become one.

So let me introduce you to my little friend! This is my Flip video recorder stuck to my windshield and it's going to be recording every trip I make in this city from now on. When I have enough edited footage I'll post it on my YouTube channel. So to that swollen dwarf in the black Dodge Ram who parked so close to my drivers door I couldn't get in! Next time you'll be recorded. That ignorant kid who almost T-boned me in the Wally Mart parking lot! You're about to transcend your local jerk status and become a famous jerk.

Winnipeg drivers are a pretty noisy bunch I've noticed. Ask them about bicycle lanes, pot holes or traffic circles and watch the vein in their temple start to pulse.  Cameras at intersections, fines for cell phone use while driving...all provoke fits of rage. But you know what? You get no sympathy from me! As far as I'm concerned there should be a cameras at every traffic light, more patrol cars roaming around and a website where you can name and shame transgressors.